I am the master of my fate I am the captain of my soul

我が運命を決めるのは我也我が魂を制するのは我也 (waga unmei wo kimeru no wa ware nari, waga tamashii wo seisuru no wa ware nari): I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul. 我が waga is my, the old possessive; 運命 unmei is fate; 決める kimeru is to decide; のは no wa turns the clause into a subject, the one who decides my fate; 我 ware is I; 也 nari is the classical copula, is, written here in its kanbun form, and it is that copula, twice, that makes the Japanese read as a vow. 魂 tamashii is the soul and 制する seisuru is to govern, to hold in check, the verb chosen for captain. The lines are the last two of William Ernest Henley's poem, dated 1875, printed in 1888 and titled Invictus by a later anthologist; the Japanese sentence is the one a Japanese reader of the 2009 film Invictus will know, as the encyclopedia gives Mandela's recitation of the poem, and the design writes it with 也 for the encyclopedia's なり.